-January 6 – Susan and I went to see the movie Rogue One at
Alamo Drafthouse. I reserved as soon as
the showing was available earlier in the week so we had great seats. We arrived a bit early to order food and
drinks and settle in. There was an odd
moment where a couple thought they had reserved the seats we were sitting
in. It turned out that their reservation
was for two days earlier and they rescheduled to Friday but were a row
back. Crisis averted. The food was alright and the drinks good. We both liked the movie and I felt like it
added weight to the Star Wars franchise.
The next day we really didn’t accomplish a whole lot which
was fine by me. Sunday was looking to be
more of the same except that Alvin and Kari invited us over for game night with
their friends Chris and Grace. Susan
made a BLT pasta salad she saw on Facebook which came out excellent and Kari
cooked a ham gifted from their neighbors.
The food was great and we played a game of Cabo to its completion after
we ate. Of course, Chris and Grace had
never heard of the game but they learned quickly and ended up finishing 2nd
and 3rd. Somehow I finished
first when Susan blasted past 100. We
had a lot of fun talking about this and that before heading home.
-January 6 – We had some shopping to do and also wanted to
go out to dinner. After leaving both
Texas Roadhouse and Outback Steakhouse due to extreme wait times I decided we’d
shop first and get dinner afterwards.
This worked well as Costco was mostly dead and by the time we finished
getting what we needed we found that Lone Star Steakhouse had no wait time at
all. Susan got filet and shrimp and I
stuck to regular filet. It was tasty
although I think mine was cooked a smidge more than I normally prefer.
The next morning Susan and I went to breakfast at Village in
once we were both finally up. Susan got
their eggs benedicts which was alright but not up to BOB’s snuff. We were seating next to another table which
we couldn’t help but listen in on. They
were entertaining enough we spent most of our meal contemplating the lives of
twenty-something-year-olds. On the way
home we did a bit of grocery shopping.
We then proceeded to paint pictures.
This time I chose a Bob Ross-style idea of a happy mountain, happy
trees, and a happy cabin all next to a happy lake. We sketched out our ideas and our paintings
came out ok. Not our best work but we
had a good time. We still had leftover
champagne from New Year’s and made mimosas to imbibe while we painted.
Sunday morning we got up to help hook up our trailer to
Stuart’s (Jeff’s dad) rented pickup truck.
The weekend before his Suburban and fifth-wheel camper had been blown
over coming up I25 down around Colorado Springs. He’s going to try to buy back what he can and
haul it home. We decided it was probably
time to start the Suburban and WRX as it’s been a couple of months since last
we did. The Suburban started up alright
but the WRX’s battery was completely dead.
It was so drained it took multiple tries and Susan revving the Subaru
wagon to finally get it started. I
hadn’t been driving it due to its lack of snow tires and strange steering
issues. I pulled it into the garage to
check the steering knuckle which I was thinking was possibly the cause of its
woes. Alas, I did install it correctly
the first time so now I’m probably going to pull the power steering rack out
again and have it checked. Susan said I
should just sell the car. She was joking
(probably). After finishing up outside
(it was chilly out!) we started and finished a puzzle on the kitchen
table. This was the first time we’ve
done this (it only took a couple of hours) so we decided to up our game and buy
some 1,000 piece puzzles off Amazon. We
spent the remainder of the day hanging with the pugs on the couch watching this
and that on the bube-tube. We had a
really nice weekend.
January 21 weekend – Friday night we ordered deliver from
JP’s and it was tasty. We also finished
our first 1,000 piece puzzle. Saturday
had us sleeping in which was nice. I
pulled the WRX into the garage to take another look at the steering rack where
I finally figured out the issue. Turns
out two of the attachment bolts had come loose.
The other bolts were pretty tight but not quite enough to hold it still
when turning so the whole rack would shift from side to side. I had to loosen the other bolts to realign
the rack a little and then put it back together. A test drive showed that I had solved the
mystery. Success! I just wish I would have figured it out two
months ago. To prove the car’s efficacy
we took it shopping and to an early steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse. The car rumbled around well and the steering
was fine. In the evening we decided to
start our second 1,000 piece puzzle instead of painting. This new puzzle immediately proved more
difficult than the first one and we were slow in making progress.
I got up early and took care of the pugs on Sunday and let
Susan sleep in longer. Susan had a busy
day planned as she was getting lunch with her manager before going to the
Lakewood Theater to watch a musical another coworker of hers was in. She eventually got up and showered before
leaving. Susan was early enough out that
she got to do some thrift store shopping before lunch. From what I’ve gathered she had a nice time
at lunch and the show was good. I stayed
home and watched movies with the pugs.
Upon Susan’s return we worked on the puzzle more before hanging with the
puggers on the couch to finish out the weekend.
-January 30 weekend – Friday night we tried our hand at
making yellow curry and chicken. Susan
had gotten a mole removed on her forearm (we later found out it was benign)
which ran late so I stopped on my way home to get the more exotic ingredients. Susan and I then spent an hour preparing and
cooking it. It wasn’t bad but we had
nothing to offset its spiciness (not even milk) so we suffered.
On Saturday morning I felt the urge to get up at 6:00 so
took care of the pugs and then finished the puzzle we were working on while
Susan slept. She was not a fan of this
particular puzzle so didn’t mind me doing so (in fact she was glad). As Saturday was the Chinese New Year we went
up to Chinese Gourmet. Chinese Gourmet
is a place Mark (my father) used to take the family to when we were growing
up. It’s where I fell in love with
sesame chicken and Chinese food in general.
Susan and I used to go when we were younger and lived in the area. We ordered Pu Pu Platter and I got (surprise)
sesame chicken with Susan going with garlic shrimp. By the time the main courses came we were
mostly full and packed up the rest for later.
On the way home we purchased some milk and bread so we could give the
curry chicken another try. We did have
some for dinner but agreed that perhaps homemade curry is something we need to
work on. We also started a new
puzzle. We did find out on Saturday that
the foster pug Pugsly we briefly took care of last month had to be put
down. Her collapsing trachea had
essentially collapsed completely. Poor little
pug.
Sunday we both slept in until 10:00 which was
wonderful. We gave the pugs breakfast
and then I played guitar a bit while Susan showered. Then it was off to Conifer to drop off
samples at Conifer Medical and back down to Denver to BOB which we hadn’t gone
to in awhile. We called ahead but still
had to wait around 20 minutes to sit. I
tried their biscuits and gravy (it was ok) and Susan stuck with her regular
jalapeño bacon benedict. After a quick
stop for more bandages for Susan’s forearm wound we found that sway bar end
links I’d ordered earlier in the week had arrived. Thus I spent most of the remaining lit part
of Sunday installing them and replacing the blown rear strut in the WRX. The work itself wasn’t hard per se but took
me a few hours to complete. Susan spent
some of that time checking and filling the tires of the evo, Miata, and Impreza
wagon (they were all low). Dinner was
leftovers as we attacked the newest puzzle (we made crazy-good progress). Another great weekend in the books!
Some tid-bits:
The pugs are doing well.
Tweetie may be starting to lose her mind a bit and walks a bit funny as
she has some pain in her joints. I still
carry her up and down the stairs and we have to pick her up if she’s going to
get on the couch. Bella is still weird
and cute but good. Sophie still
struggles with attachment issues with Susan.
When we work on our puzzles we’ve resorted to putting her and Bella in
their kennel as it seems to help her stay calm.
We’ve really fallen hard for our puzzles this last
month. Our kitchen table has been
completely covered with miscellaneous detritus for much of the time we’ve had a
kitchen table but has been clean since we started working on puzzles. We finish one or two a week and have enjoyed
them immensely.
The weather has been nice for the most part this
January. We normally don’t get a lot of
snow during this particular month and didn’t this year which was nice. It sounds like the mountains have been
hammered though which is great for tourism and our water tables so that’s
good.
We’re in a spate of making healthyish dinners which has been
nice. Susan has helped me out a lot in
the kitchen which is good as help is always appreciated and she has more say in
what exactly we concoct.
The next rallycross season is approaching and there is new
leadership which has been interesting.
We have bi-weekly conference calls that have gone alright although much
of the time I can’t understand what is being discussed. The issue being that everyone is using cell
phones which aren’t generally as clear as land lines.
We’re looking forward to our upcoming cruise at the end of
February. We just finished signing up
for shore excursions and are contemplating how to smuggle booze onto the
ship. My vote is to make a “fat shirt”
for myself but Susan wants to simply do what we’ve done in the past (use
rum-runner bladders in our suit cases).
We’ll see how this plays out.
Susan got her picture taken for her driver’s license. This isn’t notable per se except that the
picture on her soon-to-be-expired license is from over 10 years ago. Old enough she was still bleaching her
hair. My license expires this year too
but I don’t have to get a new picture which is fine by me as my current picture
(me with a beard and a mohawk) is good.
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